Post by Rob W. Case on Jun 4, 2009 1:20:24 GMT -6
The End of the World?
Now, more than ever before we hear about the world coming to an end. We see it on television, we hear it on radio, we read it in various publications and we watch it in movies. We hear about it from some of our pastors, and we overhear people talk about it in our daily lives. All in all, talk about the end of the world is not going to go away.
The end of the world is a very popular phrase. It is popular because it both raises our curiosities and levels of interest, while at the same time it triggers fear by those who sense the strong possibilities of it coming to pass, and feel that there is no way to stop it from occurring. In many ways there is a thrill factor in talking about the end of the world. It is interesting to know what the future will hold, and it is even more interesting to think that there may not even be a future at all. That is why people are showing a great deal of interest in the writings of Nostradomus, as well as a new interest in the year 2012 (which is the last year on the ancient Mayan calendar), and such and so forth. Even in 2009, in Florida they are holding an International Bible Prophecy Conference that they have been airing on the GOD-TV satellite network.
The Question at Hand:
Will there be an end of the world? Will the earth blow up the way many speculate? Will approximately 6.6 billion people on earth be destroyed in a very small time frame due to nuclear warfare, neutron bombs, dirty bombs, or something worse?
The answer to this question depends on who you put your faith in. Do you put your faith in man’s word, or God’s word?
If you put your faith in man, then here is what to expect:
Nuclear scientists, physicists, world leaders, and many prominent scholars on many levels of life believe that the world is going to end. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago created a symbolic analogical clock that represented how close mankind is in engaging in a global nuclear war, and how close it is to obliterating itself, causing an end to the world.
On the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website, it describes for you the background pertaining to its existence.
www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview
Scientists differ as to how they think the world is going to end. According to England’s major newspaper The Guardian, there are at least 10 major ways they believe the earth is going to end.
Read it for yourself:
www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/14/research.science2
According to the above article, scientists believe that the world will end via…
1. Climate Change
2. Telomere Erosion—Simply Put, Darwinists believe that our “evolutionary clock” will just run out and we will all become extinct.
3. Viral pandemic—Worldwide diseases that kill humanity off.
4. Terrorism
5. Nuclear War
6. Meteorite Impact
7. Robots taking over—A scenario that “The Terminator” movies suggest.
8. Cosmic explosions due to exploding stars in space
9. Super Volcanoes
10. Earth Swallowed by a Black Hole
These are all scenarios brought about by the worlds leading scientists. Simply put, if you place your faith in the words of scientists, you should expect them to be correct. This is where one’s faith in science (and in this case, Darwin’s theory of evolution) or one’s faith in God becomes critical in discerning the future status of the world. Within the confines of a strict, scientific standpoint, one should expect an end to the world. It is, by their standards anyway, only logical.
If you believe in God, and you put your faith in His word, you should expect God to be in control of the situation, and not allow the end of the world to take place. The choice is that simple and that straightforward.
In the Bible, there are numerous verses supporting the idea that the world is never going to end. But the only way the world can never end is by Jesus Christ returning here to put a stop to people destroying his earth and destroying one another, as well as ruling and reigning on earth forever and ever.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
Psalm 104:5
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
Ephesians 3:21
21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Luke 1:32-33
32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
Where is he supposed to set up this Kingdom if the earth is going to blow up and end? Let’s take a look at some of the prophetic verses regarding the future of this world.
Isaiah 45:17
17 But Israel will be saved by the LORD
with an everlasting salvation;
you will never be put to shame or disgraced,
to ages everlasting.
Revelation 11:15
15The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."
That is yet to happen, but it will.
Biblically, we see that the earth is never going to be destroyed, so what is the end? The Bible describes the “ends of the earth” in various passages, but those are geographical. It means from north to south, east to west, from point A to point B, covering one region to another clockwise. Then, there is an end of the age. This is what many pastors misinterpret, or misdescribe as the end of the world. In a way, it will be an end of the world AS WE KNOW IT TO BE RIGHT NOW, but it won’t be an end of the world by destruction. There is a difference, as I will explain it.
Explaining the Age of Grace:
To put it as simply and as briefly as possible, there have been two ages. The age of the law, and the age of grace. The age of the law were the times recorded in the Old Testament, in which God held a series of high standards for those seeking access to him. In the age of the law, only holy, upright men of God were able to access him directly in the Jewish temples erected for him. Since man became more evil, and as the religious leaders became corrupted, God pulled out the big guns. Knowing that humanity was going to reach a point where they would be hopelessly lost, He decided to fulfill his last option, sending his son Jesus to die for our sins, and fulfill the prophecies identifying Christ as the coming Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. Because it reached a point where humanity began falling away from such strict, and high standards set by God the Father, the future of humanity was destined for hell, and God could no longer set up a kingdom with those he wanted to do it with, meaning US, YOU AND ME. So God sent Jesus at the time he did, and provided us a way out. After the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the age of Grace replaced the age of the law. The age of Grace began by the death of a perfect, willing, and sinless sacrifice. Since the wages of sin is death, Christ, a sinless person died, because he took all of humanity’s sins on him. Since Christ took on our sins, while having no sin in his heart, death sort of “threw him back.” God had raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus rose from the dead. That gave mankind the option to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and be allowed access into God’s presence, or reject him and be judged according to the old standard of the law. Christ provided a way to be free from being judged by the law for those who accepted him as their own personal savior by their own free will. When those who accept Christ as their savior die, their souls go to heaven, while their earthly bodies remain on earth. When those who do not accept Christ as their savior die, their souls go to a waiting place, a gloomy dungeon (Isaiah 42:7, 2 Peter 2:4) before they are judged, but their bodies remain on earth as well.
Defining The End of the Age:
Jesus described the end of the age through a parable in Matthew 13:24-30, and explains it this way.
24Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
28" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
29" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "
He explains the parable in Matthew 24:37-43, saying….
……"The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Here is the reality of what has happened so far, and what is to come. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and before he ascended into Heaven, he said, “19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)”
In Part 2, I will explain even further the reality of the end of the age, where we are at this point, and what to expect from a Biblical point of view.
Now, more than ever before we hear about the world coming to an end. We see it on television, we hear it on radio, we read it in various publications and we watch it in movies. We hear about it from some of our pastors, and we overhear people talk about it in our daily lives. All in all, talk about the end of the world is not going to go away.
The end of the world is a very popular phrase. It is popular because it both raises our curiosities and levels of interest, while at the same time it triggers fear by those who sense the strong possibilities of it coming to pass, and feel that there is no way to stop it from occurring. In many ways there is a thrill factor in talking about the end of the world. It is interesting to know what the future will hold, and it is even more interesting to think that there may not even be a future at all. That is why people are showing a great deal of interest in the writings of Nostradomus, as well as a new interest in the year 2012 (which is the last year on the ancient Mayan calendar), and such and so forth. Even in 2009, in Florida they are holding an International Bible Prophecy Conference that they have been airing on the GOD-TV satellite network.
The Question at Hand:
Will there be an end of the world? Will the earth blow up the way many speculate? Will approximately 6.6 billion people on earth be destroyed in a very small time frame due to nuclear warfare, neutron bombs, dirty bombs, or something worse?
The answer to this question depends on who you put your faith in. Do you put your faith in man’s word, or God’s word?
If you put your faith in man, then here is what to expect:
Nuclear scientists, physicists, world leaders, and many prominent scholars on many levels of life believe that the world is going to end. In 1947, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago created a symbolic analogical clock that represented how close mankind is in engaging in a global nuclear war, and how close it is to obliterating itself, causing an end to the world.
On the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website, it describes for you the background pertaining to its existence.
www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview
Scientists differ as to how they think the world is going to end. According to England’s major newspaper The Guardian, there are at least 10 major ways they believe the earth is going to end.
Read it for yourself:
www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/apr/14/research.science2
According to the above article, scientists believe that the world will end via…
1. Climate Change
2. Telomere Erosion—Simply Put, Darwinists believe that our “evolutionary clock” will just run out and we will all become extinct.
3. Viral pandemic—Worldwide diseases that kill humanity off.
4. Terrorism
5. Nuclear War
6. Meteorite Impact
7. Robots taking over—A scenario that “The Terminator” movies suggest.
8. Cosmic explosions due to exploding stars in space
9. Super Volcanoes
10. Earth Swallowed by a Black Hole
These are all scenarios brought about by the worlds leading scientists. Simply put, if you place your faith in the words of scientists, you should expect them to be correct. This is where one’s faith in science (and in this case, Darwin’s theory of evolution) or one’s faith in God becomes critical in discerning the future status of the world. Within the confines of a strict, scientific standpoint, one should expect an end to the world. It is, by their standards anyway, only logical.
If you believe in God, and you put your faith in His word, you should expect God to be in control of the situation, and not allow the end of the world to take place. The choice is that simple and that straightforward.
In the Bible, there are numerous verses supporting the idea that the world is never going to end. But the only way the world can never end is by Jesus Christ returning here to put a stop to people destroying his earth and destroying one another, as well as ruling and reigning on earth forever and ever.
Ecclesiastes 1:4
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
Psalm 104:5
5 He set the earth on its foundations;
it can never be moved.
Ephesians 3:21
21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Luke 1:32-33
32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
Where is he supposed to set up this Kingdom if the earth is going to blow up and end? Let’s take a look at some of the prophetic verses regarding the future of this world.
Isaiah 45:17
17 But Israel will be saved by the LORD
with an everlasting salvation;
you will never be put to shame or disgraced,
to ages everlasting.
Revelation 11:15
15The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."
That is yet to happen, but it will.
Biblically, we see that the earth is never going to be destroyed, so what is the end? The Bible describes the “ends of the earth” in various passages, but those are geographical. It means from north to south, east to west, from point A to point B, covering one region to another clockwise. Then, there is an end of the age. This is what many pastors misinterpret, or misdescribe as the end of the world. In a way, it will be an end of the world AS WE KNOW IT TO BE RIGHT NOW, but it won’t be an end of the world by destruction. There is a difference, as I will explain it.
Explaining the Age of Grace:
To put it as simply and as briefly as possible, there have been two ages. The age of the law, and the age of grace. The age of the law were the times recorded in the Old Testament, in which God held a series of high standards for those seeking access to him. In the age of the law, only holy, upright men of God were able to access him directly in the Jewish temples erected for him. Since man became more evil, and as the religious leaders became corrupted, God pulled out the big guns. Knowing that humanity was going to reach a point where they would be hopelessly lost, He decided to fulfill his last option, sending his son Jesus to die for our sins, and fulfill the prophecies identifying Christ as the coming Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. Because it reached a point where humanity began falling away from such strict, and high standards set by God the Father, the future of humanity was destined for hell, and God could no longer set up a kingdom with those he wanted to do it with, meaning US, YOU AND ME. So God sent Jesus at the time he did, and provided us a way out. After the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the age of Grace replaced the age of the law. The age of Grace began by the death of a perfect, willing, and sinless sacrifice. Since the wages of sin is death, Christ, a sinless person died, because he took all of humanity’s sins on him. Since Christ took on our sins, while having no sin in his heart, death sort of “threw him back.” God had raised Jesus from the dead, and Jesus rose from the dead. That gave mankind the option to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and be allowed access into God’s presence, or reject him and be judged according to the old standard of the law. Christ provided a way to be free from being judged by the law for those who accepted him as their own personal savior by their own free will. When those who accept Christ as their savior die, their souls go to heaven, while their earthly bodies remain on earth. When those who do not accept Christ as their savior die, their souls go to a waiting place, a gloomy dungeon (Isaiah 42:7, 2 Peter 2:4) before they are judged, but their bodies remain on earth as well.
Defining The End of the Age:
Jesus described the end of the age through a parable in Matthew 13:24-30, and explains it this way.
24Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
27"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'
28" 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'
29" 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "
He explains the parable in Matthew 24:37-43, saying….
……"The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. 40"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Here is the reality of what has happened so far, and what is to come. After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and before he ascended into Heaven, he said, “19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matthew 28:19-20)”
In Part 2, I will explain even further the reality of the end of the age, where we are at this point, and what to expect from a Biblical point of view.